BY RYAN BRADFORD
MUSIC
BLACK
ALFRED HOWARD
GOLD
Black people music
I
was responding to a Craigslist ad for free records in Santee. I want all the free records (for anyone reading this, please make a note of this fact), but on this particularly lazy Sunday afternoon, I wasn’t sure I wanted to make the drive east. After all, free records are often free for a reason. The records’ sleeves have been termite food. They’ve witnessed enough malevolent weather to believe in climate change. They’ve been scratched by, I assume, DJ Freddy Krueger. They’re Lawrence Welk records. So I called ahead. “Hey, before I come out there, what kind of music is it?” I asked, weary of sounding ungrateful for the free nature of these treats. The voice on the other side delivered that slow-as-molasses, universal redneck drawl; an accent that’s as comfortable in Tennessee as it is in Montana. “Black people music,” he responded. I could feel my mother’s anxiety manifesting itself as an angel on my left shoulder, shouting through the lord’s megaphone. “Don’t you dare step into the Confederate lion’s den,” her voice said. But the devil was on my other shoulder. “You love Black people music! Get your Black ass over there! Really, what are the chances this ends with you in a ball gag reenacting that scene from Pulp Fiction?” Per usual, I listened to the devil. The guy giving away the records couldn’t have been nicer and he was technically right: It was Black people music. Well, it was R&B music, but the seller just didn’t have the nuanced language of genres. He did say something along the lines of “looks like it found the right home.” When it comes to adopting records, I don’t discriminate—white people music, Black people music, other people music
22 · SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT · APRIL 10, 2019
(note: when I try to lump all the remaining races into a category called “other,” it’s definitely a joke and an attempt to avoid a runon sentence). It’s all got a home in my ears. Be that as it may, a lot of record sellers I’ve come across presuppose that this might not be the case. When I first started going
“Ten More Shopping Days (Till The Bomb)” by The Weeds to swap meets—before folks began to recognize me from awkwardly carrying out leaning towers of records—there were instances where I’d begin thumbing through a stack of vinyl and the seller would say something like, “I don’t really have any rap music in there.” They’d say this as if the scope of my vision couldn’t see past Biggie, a mountainous figure that blocked out the view of rock ‘n’ roll behind him. (At the moment I’m writing these words, I’m picturing a Notorious B.I.G. solar eclipse and it’s so magnificent, I wish I could animate these articles). Once, I even had a guy come into Cow Records, where I work, and ask me if I’d
“ever heard of Led Zeppelin.” I’m sure he fully expected the answer to be “no,” in which case his follow up question would involve him humming “Stairway to Heaven.” I diffused it with a joke. “You think they’d let me work at a record store and not know who Zeppelin is?” I asked this despite the fact that I wanted to bewilder him by asking, “Is that Puff Daddy’s backing band on the song ‘Come With Me’ from the Godzilla soundtrack?” Or I’d simply blow his mind by naming every song off the first six Zeppelin records (I’m admittedly a little hazy by the time I get to Presence), while also naming all the artists they stole from even though I still love them. Bring on the one-star Yelp review. One time, I was at the Santee Swap Meet at 5 a.m. It was cold—the type of cold locals don’t necessarily prepare for, as San Diego has a way of making us forget that frigidity is an option. There wasn’t much out there at that hour, but then I saw a guy who had sold records out there before. I asked him if he had any. He hesitated. “I do, but you won’t like them,” he remarked. Funny thing was, we’d never met. We’d never spent long hours discussing the merits of Ten Years After, Them, The Groundhogs or The Animals. He only had one salient detail about who I was and I don’t think it was enough to estimate the extent of my taste. “I just might,” I said. At this point, I was determined to buy these records just to prove a point. If it had been a collection of Satanic Klansman 45s, I would have purchased the lot of them just to teach someone not to judge a book by its cover. Instead, it was a bag of psych and garage-rock 45s so incredible, it’s unlikely I’ll ever top that score. And in this lot were 15 copies of a 45 that had no history of being found before: The Weeds’ 1967 single, “Ten More Shopping Days (Till the Bomb).” It’s a slow, distorted dance of jangled guitars and patient paranoia. The title alone is everything I’ve ever wanted to say about consumer culture and dyslexic priorities. It’s honestly my favorite 45 I’ve ever found. It’s the kind of record that makes getting up at 5 a.m.—and diffusing racist assumptions—all worth it. Black Gold appears every other week. Alfred Howard is always looking for vinyl and can be contacted at blackgoldsandiego@gmail.com.
THE
SPOTLIGHT
W
Raffi
hen my friends started having kids a couple years ago, I briefly explored the Rockabye Baby! series of albums thinking they’d be good gifts. What hip, new parents wouldn’t want a baby-friendly cover version of Radiohead? I wondered. But after a couple minutes into listening, I was disgusted and turned it off. What kind of pandering shit is this? Babies don’t care about Thom Yorke’s genius! It sounded like an exploitative moneygrab aimed at parents who worry that their kids aren’t hip. But you know what’s really hip for kids to listen to? Fucking Raffi. The Canadian singer and activist has created so many iconic children’s songs that in 1992, The Washington Post dubbed him “the most popular children’s singer of the English speaking world.” With hits like “Baby Beluga,” “Down By The Bay” and “Bananaphone,” it’s a wonder why anyone would even step up to him. Seriously, you can’t fuck with lyrics like “Did you ever see llamas eating their pajamas?” And guess what? In the year of our lord, 2019, Raffi is pissed. Well, as pissed as a kind-hearted, beloved songwriter can be. He recently put out Motivational Songs, which features a lot of songs about climate-change awareness and being kind to one another. It’s never too early for kids to learn selflessness, compassion and any types of lessons that will steer them away from wearing a MAGA hat in the future. Raffi plays April 27 at the Balboa Theater.
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